MCRed

40 ms·

361.
by MCRed 11y ago
I can't speak for the gender ratio in "science" but I can speak for my experiences in Computer Science, which are by definition anecdotal. I'm the son of a computer programmer. My mother got her degree in this back when
362.
by MCRed 11y ago
This is what makes C# so pleasant to use. Before C# Microsoft created a language called J IIRC that was meant to compete with Java (Maybe it was J++?) Wikipedia says J#, but I think this is a later incarnation: https://en.wikipe
363.
by MCRed 11y ago
And Objective-C is a derivative/recreation/highly inspired by SmallTalk. But my question is, what modern language today is a copy of Dylan?
364.
by MCRed 11y ago
I think github was the ideal company. They were profitable from day one, grew like crazy. But they weren't chasing a unicorn. There's a lot of delusion among "unicorn chasers" that I've seen-- but that may not be t
365.
by MCRed 11y ago
Here's what 20 years of experience working for startups has taught me: -- Either be a founder if you want to be there in the early days. -- Or join a "sure thing". EG: Google, Twitter, Facebook about a couple years before th
366.
by MCRed 11y ago
Yep, but I couldn't care less about the portfolio, and the founders shouldn't either. You're pointing out why VCs need big exits, and even a profitable one like this one may not be profitable "enough", but that &q
367.
by MCRed 11y ago
It's not a simply "$100k/$30M = Equity" situation, and I wasn't expecting people to go into this much detail. My equity at hiring time was probably %1.5, I think. But there was vesting, of course, and also a whole l
368.
by MCRed 11y ago
VCs are terrible at this. I can't tell you how many times in the past 20 years I've heard VCs say things like "you should move into [tangentially related area that we can't add value to that just had a big exit]" F
369.
by MCRed 11y ago
No, that's not the ground truth. That's the rationalization that founders tell themselves to justify being screwed over. If you take someone else's money, they should get ownership proportional to their investment, yes. The
370.
by MCRed 11y ago
That's the theoretical view of the VCs that they propagandize and that is accepted pretty widely. The reality is, VCs are herd animals, and when the herd is spooked they make a lot of stupid decisions. I've seen this more than onc
371.
by MCRed 11y ago
Don't be silly. Putting in 3 million and taking 15 million out in 2-3 years is not a "loss after banking fees". VCs can want $100M or $1B, but it was the VCs that chose to sell this company for $30M when it could have been $3
372.
by MCRed 11y ago
For the fee of taking half the company, in this situation the VCs: -- Cut the valuation by %90. If we had been allowed to execute the founders vision (which could have been done bootstrapped) we would have exited close to $300M. (A compet
373.
by MCRed 11y ago
Investing in the stock market is not a game of chance. You may lack the skill or discipline to engage in that activity, and that's fine, don't do it, put your time elsewhere, such as the real estate method I described. Calling it
374.
by MCRed 11y ago
Can you explain why, or link to a summary of the history? Wasn't it a license specific to erlang in the past? If so that's great as Apache is standard. But if it went from another common license I'm curious to know why.
375.
by MCRed 11y ago
I've made more money investing in stocks and options than I have from options. Over 20 years as an employee (so excluding time as a founder) my returns from investments is 2-3X the return from startup stock options. And that's as
376.
by MCRed 11y ago
%0.01 Because even if it's %1 at the time you join, by the time the lottery ticket can be cashed in it will be diluted, plus liquidations preferences, etc.
377.
by MCRed 11y ago
Over many years as an employee for startups, I was employee number 24 of a $30M cash acquisition exit. The result was 6 figures, but just. Effectively it was a year's salary. That's all my options were worth and to get that retu
378.
by MCRed 11y ago
IF there's enough liquidation preferences, even a successful exit in the $50M range could leave nothing more than a fraction of your annual salary for everyone but the founders. Every dollar taken in investment reduces the likelihood o
379.
by MCRed 11y ago
Worse, even with the %50 pay cut (or worse!) many startups expect you to take, the amount of options you're given are really trivial. It is possible to value options using black scholes or other valuation metrics. But every time I&#x27
380.
by MCRed 11y ago
If you really want to understand what's happening in the economy, with advance notice, read http://mises.org . That site has hundreds of economics books for free (great reading!) but also regular news articles. For instance
381.
by MCRed 11y ago
I've been writing software professionally since the late 1980s. So, I've observed this trend and the industry over a long period. I first worked for a startup in the early 1990s, and before that I worked mostly in small businesses
382.
by MCRed 11y ago
I can't wait. Once I can reasonably replace everything with SSDs I will. And then I'll never buy spinning rust again. I dreamed of this eventuality in the 1990s. I didn't know what technology would be used. I never expected
383.
by MCRed 11y ago
Think about the market dynamics. Not just the 3D technology they are talking about, which brings parity within range, imagine what you would do if you were an SSD maker and this was on the horizon. You'd rush to reach parity because a
384.
by MCRed 11y ago
It should have no impact. It really is about write capacity. The little cells can only handle being changed so many times before they wear out. The wearing is a chemical/semi-conductor type problem. It's not like DRAM where kee
385.
by MCRed 11y ago
I love "Badge Engineering". Means if you're in the market for a reliable used car, you can buy a Pontiac Vibe for cheap and get a Toyota Matrix in quality. (since it's the same car)
386.
by MCRed 11y ago
I don't know what are you are, but when I was 18-26 that message was very appealing to me!
387.
by MCRed 11y ago
Yep. And it appears that the Artists, like the music industry, really don't get that things have changed. Hey, I'm old school. I can identify with them. I like to buy my music. I don't get subscriptions where if I stop playin
388.
by MCRed 11y ago
This is a real problem for Toyota. They created the entire Scion brand to attract young people because the average age of a Toyota owner is getting pretty high. And what's happened? A lot of the Scions are being bought by cheapskate
389.
by MCRed 11y ago
I don't know how many people use gravity forms, but your landing page is very nice! I imagined myself as a customer, for my launch rock placeholder page... in that case I'd want to try the service for a week and see if I liked it
390.
by MCRed 11y ago
If a prisoner is raped, the prison should incur liability, civil and criminal for allowing it to happen. When guards initiate violence against prisoners they should be liable as well. This should be the case for both private and "pub

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